“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were,” says Marcel Proust. In this book Ritratti mill-istorja (Photos from history), Evarist Bartolo tries to reconstruct the daily life of the Maltese common people in the first decades of the 20th century.

Our islands were changing from an agricultural society to an early industrial one but with a political and economic system pre-eminently still serving as one of the largest naval and military bases of the British Empire.

It is about the time when only seven per cent of adult males had a vote, while female adults had no vote at all.  This book is about the thousands of anonymous persons: farmers, coal-heavers, beggars, cabdrivers, babies and children, workers from overseas… who are usually mostly invisible in our history books, especially those who narrate history as if it is made by ‘extraordinary’ and ‘great men’.

Bartolo acknowledges what a challenge it is to write the history of the common people of Malta and Gozo. Most of them were illiterate and unable to leave us written records about themselves and their families.

So, at best, such histories are only approximations of complex realities reconstructed from official government sources, church records, the newspapers of the day and other secondary accounts.

Bartolo tries to piece together the patterns of daily life, health, work, beliefs, customs and food of the people. Towards the end of the book, he urges professional historians to write more about the lives of the common people, most of them unsung heroes who built this country.

Ritratti mill-Istorja published by SKS Publishers will be launched on, April 7 at 6.30pm at Razzett tal-Markiż, Mosta. Norbert Bugeja and John Chircop will review the book. Philip Vella will sing verses published by local newspapers a century ago and reproduced in the book. Entrance is free and refreshments will be served after the book launch.